Happy Sunday, Creative Army!

I hope your weekend has been a creative one so far. Whether you have been writing, filming, editing, or sketching out the next spark of an idea, I have something today that will give you a boost. So grab your coffee, and let's dive in.

This week's featured video comes from FilmStack: The Decade Hollywood Stopped Saying No.

The greatest creative run in American film history happened because an industry got scared. Not because it got generous. The door didn't open in 1970 because anyone in charge believed in artistic freedom. It opened because the studios were panicking. Television had arrived, the expensive musicals had stopped working, and nobody at the top understood their audience anymore. They handed control to filmmakers because they had run out of better ideas for making money.

I've watched smaller versions of that my whole career. The doors open when somebody at the top is uncertain. That's when they take a call they wouldn't normally take, read a script they wouldn't normally read, take a swing they can't fully justify. Uncertainty in this business is not a bad market. It's an opening, and the people who move during it are the ones you're reading about fifty years later.

JAWS, where a broken mechanical shark forced Spielberg to build the terror out of faces and music instead. Lucas building his own effects company because the industry couldn't give him what he needed. Audiences didn't want to leave those worlds when the movies ended. They wanted the toys, the soundtrack, the lunchboxes, and to know what happened next. And the question inside the studios quietly changed from can we make a successful movie to can we build something that stays valuable after the movie ends.

Every note you've ever gotten about franchise potential, every conversation about IP, every executive asking where this goes in season three, all of it traces back to a handful of years in the seventies when filmmakers won their freedom and then accidentally handed the studios a better formula than the one they'd lost.

I get asked constantly how to use one project to open doors for another. Somebody has a script in development, or in active packaging, and wants to know whether they can use it to get eyes on the rest of their work. The answer is yes, and it depends entirely on what you actually have.

So ask yourself honestly. How is the project being packaged? Did you sell it? Is somebody out there helping you package it? Were you able to attract a producer? Are there names attached that people in the room will recognize, a cast member, a director?

If any of those are true, that is real leverage, and you absolutely use it. You get to walk in and say, I have this project in active development. Would you want to take a look at this one?

Same with an Open Writing Assignment in the Stage 32 Writers’ Room. If you have been accepted for an OWA here on Stage 32, understand what that means. That puts you in the top one percent of everybody who submitted. That's leverage, and you should be saying it out loud.

Everything in this business is leverage. Which is exactly why everything in this business is also relationships. Because you don't get to use the leverage if you don't have the relationships to bring it to. You can have the most impressive attachment in the world and it does nothing sitting in a folder. It only works when there are people who will take your call.

And it has to be the right kind of leverage, brought to the right person, at the right moment. That's conditional on who you're talking to and what's happening around them. A producer developing thrillers doesn't care about your comedy pilot, no matter who is attached to it.

That's the skill. Not just having something, but knowing who it matters to.

Look at what the seventies actually teach us. Those filmmakers got their shot because the industry was uncertain and they happened to be standing there with something to offer. Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas. They used every success to earn the next one, and they built the relationships that let them do it.

The window opened. They were ready. And they knew who to call.

Now I want to hear from you. What's the leverage you're sitting on right now that you haven't used yet? The placement, the attachment, the OWA, the double recommend, the short that played well at a festival, the relationship you haven't followed up on. Name it in the comments, because I suspect a lot of you are holding something you haven't recognized as leverage at all.

As always, here at Stage 32, we love sharing stories and knowledge with our fellow film fans. Know someone who would love this content? Share it with them. You can keep up with all of our videos by subscribing to the Stage 32 YouTube Channel. For more inspirational, educational, and motivational content on all things entertainment industry, follow me on Instagram and X @rbwalksintoabar.

Wishing you a very happy, healthy, and creative Sunday.

Cheers,

RB

FilmStack | The Decade Hollywood Stopped Saying No

RBWalksIntoABar | How Do You Leverage A Script To Get Others Out There?

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